The Narratio Prima
- Beginning of the Narratio Prima, pag. 197r.
- Nicolaus Copernicus (Mikołaj Kopernik) (1473-1543).
- Nicolai Copernici Torinensis de Revolutionibus orbium coelestium libri sex.
- Basel: Heinrich Petri, 1566.
Being afraid of a negative reaction, Copernicus was rather reluctant to publish the manuscript of the De Revolutionibus. Thus Rheticus suggested that a generic introduction could be published to test the reaction of the scientific community. In due course, Rheticus published a seventy-page booklet called the Narratio Prima (First Report) in Gdańsk in 1540. It was received with great interest, and, apart from being included in the second edition of the De Revolutionibus, this text would be printed several times in subsequent decades. For instance, Johannes Kepler added it to his Prodromus dissertationum cosmographicarum (a Preliminary Treatise of Cosmographical Theses) published in Tübingen in 1596.